I believe there are a small handful of developers who are sort of “in” already, but they were hand-selected by Apple. Perhaps, as with the ones who came on stage during the event to demo their “two weeks worth of work” apps, they were involved before the SDK was even officially announced.

But everything I’ve heard suggests that last week’s email from Apple was sent to everyone who applied for the program. I.e., there are developers who’ve been let in through the back door, but no one has gotten in through the front door yet.

John Gruber goes on to quote two sources who've told him that Apple has received over 10,000 applications alone for the $99 package and couldn't meet demand for certificates this fast if it wanted to (and no one seems sure whether they do or not, nor how badly).

Massive over-reaction by the Twitterati? Yet another example of Apple's dwindling communications skills? And will we have to wait until the June (30th at 11:59pm?) release to know for sure?!

I wonder if Apple has considered consulting with a focus group? For example, they could consult with the numerous folks that have migrated to the iPhone from Palm, WM, etc., and learn what they like/dislike. Couldn't hurt.

@Bri Guy:Quoth the Jobs:
"We do no market research. We don't hire consultants. The only consultants I've ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway's retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products."

Not that it always works but I kind of like the way MS does it. Living in the Redmond area I've signed up for their usability studies where you fill out a survey of all of the different types of software you use including what type of smartphone as well as video games you play and consoles you own. Then when they have software that needs some testing they call you up and you come down and they ask you questions on how you would do certain tasks and sometimes they will have cameras tracking your eyes to see where on the screen you are looking. And the best part is they give you software for your time I haven't had to buy an OS or new version of office ever and of course getting to play games like halo3 and gears of war before they were released. But the down side is you can't talk about it to anyone ( I hope I'm not breaking my contract by talking about games that were released months if not years ago) But my point is MS might not always get it right but they are at least showing interest in how consumers are using their products.